[huge-pigeons]

Here in Florida we need to prosecute every crime that is committed or it will blossom to what you see from California and Illinois whereas hundreds of criminals ransack a store then flee, then eventually the store closes. Check out San Francisco or portland, Oregon, these towns look like a 3rd world country, all from not prosecuting crimes. If Florida cracks down hard, these criminals will flee to the other states that don’t prosecute.

[ROCKETMAN]

Biggest loss is self checkouts. Easy to buy 10 items and only scan 5. Walmart has lots of self checkouts and I know from working a Publix there is one security just aimed at the self checkouts.

[Sandy and Ed]

Yup. I had my credit card compromised. I knew when, where, how and who did it (bartender at restaurant the night before who needed to go to another register for about five long minutes to cash us out). Bottom line the card company made me whole but was not interested in pursuing it further. Cost too much for them. Just pass along the loss diluted among the other 98% of honest people.

[Sandy and Ed]

To costly to prosecute?? Easier to just include in pricing?? Just another cost of doing business?? As long as the simple question of morality doesn’t get into the mix, why bother? Maybe that is the answer. Maybe if making it a point to do the “Right Thing” instead of the expedient or less risky option was more popular in the corporate world? Gee, in some countries you could lose a hand if guilty of theft. Just saying.

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Sandy and Ed

Yup. I had my credit card compromised. I knew when, where, how and who did it (bartender at restaurant the night before who needed to go to another register for about five long minutes to cash us out). Bottom line the card company made me whole but was not interested in pursuing it further. Cost too much for them. Just pass along the loss diluted among the other 98% of honest people.

That would never happen to me because I pay cash at restaurants. I never allow a restaurant employee to take my credit card into another room. The credit card companies could easily solve this problem by requiring merchants to bring a credit card machine to the customer.

Also, I am frustrated that very few merchants use state-of-the-art, tap-to-pay, machines that prevent the use of skimmers to steal credit card information. Why don't the credit card companies require this technology?

[Bill14564]

Originally Posted by Sandy and Ed

To costly to prosecute?? Easier to just include in pricing?? Just another cost of doing business?? As long as the simple question of morality doesn’t get into the mix, why bother? Maybe that is the answer. Maybe if making it a point to do the “Right Thing” instead of the expedient or less risky option was more popular in the corporate world? Gee, in some countries you could lose a hand if guilty of theft. Just saying.

If the merchandise costs $300 and it is not recovered then the company needs to roll that $300 into the cost of doing business.

If instead they do the "Right Thing" and went after the thief they might spend what, 100 hours with paperwork, interviews, appearances, and negotiations plus paying for lawyer time? That would all cost money as well and likely much more than $300. Then they would roll this higher amount into the cost of doing business.

We, the customer, will pay either way. I don't like the idea of the thief getting away but I can understand a business evaluating the tradeoff and calculating that it will keep their costs/prices lower if they do not prosecute.

Yes, there is a point where the losses to theft are just too high and a different decision has to be made.

[mickey100]

A lot has to do with personal and societal values. Look at what this country idolizes and condones - material wealth and corporate greed. American society's standards and personal status are arbitrary, set by the constant advertising and consumerism. People try to live up to these unrealistic standards when they can't afford to, because everyone wants to, and is constantly reminded to, keep up. Material wealth is valued above all else. People will swoon over persons in power who are bullies, self-serving and un-truthful, simply because those people have great wealth. Those people who are struggling financially are looked down upon, while those who are rich and are exploiting the populace are seen as successful.

[RickyLee]

Originally Posted by ThirdOfFive

Interesting thing happened this past Sunday. My wife and I were shopping at Wal-Mart just off 466. Because of the small parking lot and the glut of church-crowd shoppers we didn't park in the lot but on the side by the service bays and entrance. After we checked out, instead of going out the front doors and circling around to the service bays, we exited through the customer door by auto service. We had a cart full of stuff (in bags) and traveled through the store to the side entrance, exiting without anybody saying anything.

Lesson: we could have picked up a dozen other items on our way out and stuffed them into our bags, and nobody would have been the wiser.

I've had several conversations with Wal-Mart associates these past few weeks. One with a lady in electronics just this week revealed that she stopped a person with over $400 worth of stolen merchandise. When I asked what happened, her response was "probably nothing". Another time at another Wal-Mart I stopped to buy a flash drive. After the associate unlocked it and checked me out I commented that the store must be losing a lot of money to the shoplifters. He just smiled and said "Wal-Mart isn't losing a dime--YOU are!"

It got me thinking. If I could waltz out of the store the way I did, how many others, probably far more knowledgeable about the "art" of ripping off stores, are doing it too? Wal-mart is the undisputed leader when it comes to shoplifting targets but other stores are certainly not exempt. Retail stores have about a 3% profit margin and shoplifting must be cutting into that pretty well. But...if the stores' responses are merely to raise prices, along with the occasional shoplifting arrest hitting the papers...are they really motivated to do any more than that? We TV'ers are targets in many ways, and this is one of the more insidious, in my opinion.

Unless the stores do more to stop this, aren't we in effect subsidizing a criminal (petty, to be sure, but still criminal) enterprise? And what can be done to further motivate the stores to actually implement measures that REALLY work--and stop penalizing their customers for their inaction?

As a Walmart vendor, I know for a fact they have security people that their job is watching the cameras live. They know who's in their store and where they're at usually it's repeat offenders and they know who they are. They watch and they know who's doing what. I agree with a lot of what the op says and believes, but trust me, Walmart is not oblivious to what is going on in their stores. They do what they can, but a lot of times that's not much. Vote to get drugs off our streets is the best thing you can do to protect yourself from overpaying.

[Billy1]

This theft is not new, people have stolen from markets since the beginning of time. Convenience stores especially ones located near a school or school bus stop, have regular candy theft every school day. Remember the old movies, where children would steal fruit from open markets. Things haven't gotten worse, it's just that people haven't changed.

[Robnlaura]

Many years ago I worked in “shrinkage dept” in a large store. Yes theft was 80% staff in some form. Today it’s the staff plus the new “diverse gangs” plus normal shopper theft. Some communities will lose a lot of stores soon and it’s happening fast..

[retiredguy123]

Originally Posted by Robnlaura

Many years ago I worked in “shrinkage dept” in a large store. Yes theft was 80% staff in some form. Today it’s the staff plus the new “diverse gangs” plus normal shopper theft. Some communities will lose a lot of stores soon and it’s happening fast..

The biggest threat to retail stores is not shoplifting, it's Amazon.

[Wondering]

Really? How is it our responsibility? Obviously, the Walton family doesn't care. They could hire guards. Find a hobby to take up your time.

[Maker]

When the store accepts theft as a cost of doing business, and does nothing to fight against it... Then it leads to more theft. Eventually theft loss grows to the point where the store is going to go out of business. Or they will have to raise prices so much, paying customers go elsewhere.

A store that gets aggressive and goes after all theft will certainly have more costs initially. As word gets out the criminals will go elsewhere. The business loss due to thefts will go way down, the total cost to prosecute will go down, and profits will soar. They can lower prices and make more profits because sales will soar.

However in a place like California police won't respond to thefts under $1000. Stores have mobs doing smash and grabs because they know there is no consequences. Even if they tripped and fell in front of a cop they won't be arrested.
Huge problem with that policy.

[TVTVTV]

Originally Posted by huge-pigeons

Here in Florida we need to prosecute every crime that is committed or it will blossom to what you see from California and Illinois whereas hundreds of criminals ransack a store then flee, then eventually the store closes. Check out San Francisco or portland, Oregon, these towns look like a 3rd world country, all from not prosecuting crimes. If Florida cracks down hard, these criminals will flee to the other states that don’t prosecute.

Agree. These thugs who cover themselves with hoodies and masks make them hard to identify. It's terrible that many brick and mortar stores are closing some of their stores because of fear of being ransacked. Unfortunately, if they have security guards posted, it's generally not a deterrent because most don't carry guns. A guard hired (off duty law enforcement?) with a legal license should taze or shoot some of these criminals so they might have some fear in their robbery career.

[JoelJohnson]

I used to work for a loss prevention software company that took register transactions and analysed them for employee theft.
The software was expensive, but the companies that bought it made their money back in a few months.

Half of theft is employee theft and half of that was at the register. One example is that one grocery chain that offered customer loyalty discounts started offering gas points. One customer complained that they weren't getting the gas points. After looking at the transactions I saw that there was a loyalty card scanned, several items and then a different loyalty card was scanned. As you might have guessed, the employee scanned their card after the customer had scanned theirs, so that the employee was getting the gas points.